Insight on Technology

3 Insight on Technology A u g u s t 2 019 M A R Y B E T H M AT Z E K , ED I T O R M M AT Z E K @ I N S I G H T O N B U S I N E S S .C O M It seems you can't go a week without hearing about a data breach at a company, whether it's a retailer, a financial services provider or an online platform, such as Facebook. Cybercriminals are getting smarter and working on multi- ple attacks to see what will work — whether it's gathering data to impersonate you online or getting you to download a piece of malware. As I have learned more about cyber- crime through my reporting on various articles, I have become more aware and conscious of my online behaviors. One change I've made is limiting personal social media posts. I used to post to Face- book daily about any old thing, but now I think more carefully about what information I am sharing. Am I giving away info that someone could use to impersonate me or my chil- dren? (Yes, kids can have their identities stolen, too.) And those Facebook quizzes? Those are definitely a big no. Sharing information such as your favor- ite color, food or place provides hackers with personal details they can use to guess your various passwords. Another change I've made is when I receive an email from our financial institution or credit card company asking me to log in and change my password, I take a careful look at the email address. Is the email actually from a Target.com or an imposter? Emails also can take you to a page that looks like it came from the retailer, but if you look closer, it's not. As one of the experts I talked to for my cover stor y told me, you need to browse defensively and always be aware of what information you're sharing and what you're clicking on. Accord i ng to "C ybersecu r it y: T h ree H ac k i ng Tre nd s You Need to K now About to Help P rotect Yourself," we've seen a shift in the past three years from ransomware and cr y ptomining, which t y pica l ly i mpact i nd iv idua l comput- ers, to more targeted attacks focused on specific data and ta king over corporate ser vers. Ponemon Institute conducted a study indicating that communication ser vice providers, defined as internet ser v ice prov iders a nd mobi le a nd/or cloud ser vice providers, are expecting an increase in denia l-of-ser vice (DDos) att ac k s a s t he nu mber of i nter net of things devices continues to rise. This is all happening at a time when the demand for skilled cybersecurity talent is growing on a global level. The (ISC)2 2018 Cybersecurity Workforce Study indicates a need for an additional 498,000 cybersecurity positions in the Un ited St ates a lone. T h at's up from 265,000 in the 2017 report. Discussions are occurring across the country, as well as here in Wisconsin, about how to help close this gap and prepare our youth for a digital workforce. I nc re a si ng ly, e x pe r t s a re look i ng at how c ybersec u r it y educ at ion c a n begin in high school. Jacob Mi l ler and Sa ndra Gorka, professors at Pennsyl- va n ia Col lege of Tec h nolog y, created a dua l credit cybersecurit y course for h ig h sc hool st udent s t h at t hey hope K I M I V E R S E N , D I R E C T O R , N E W I T A L L I A N C E Closing the cybersecurity tech gap FOREWORD to share with other col leges across the nation. Orga nizations, suc h a s SANS Cybersta r t, a re developing progra ms to encourage yout h to explore cyber- sec u r it y i n add it ion to g i rl-foc u sed programs to help increase the number of young women entering the field. He re i n Wi s con si n , t he D e pa r t- ment of P ublic Instruction is working to develop career pathways in I T, one of which is in cybersecurit y. Compa- nies have been invited to participate in feedback sessions to help shape the requirements within the five IT path- ways t hat have been identi fied. T he Un iversit y of Wi scon si n-Green Bay offers a program with an emphasis in cybersecurity, and loca l tech col leges offer their own programs. Nationally, Champlain College in Burlington, Vt., offers undergraduate degrees in both cybersecurity and computer forensics. A mu ltitude of programs a re ava i l- able for people wanting to know more about cybersecurit y and help us meet t he r i s i n g de m a nd for t h i s c a re e r path. Now we need to work on getting students more interested in them. Like it or not, cybercrime is not going away anytime soon. In fact, there are many indications that it's on the rise, and the types of attacks are changing as hackers get smarter about how to infiltrate systems for maximum disruption. R A I S I N G M Y G U A R D

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